The Line of Luthien
by Celimlodyn
Summary: Legolas said the line of the children of Luthien would never fail. Celeborn meets one of these far-future-descendants rather by accident.


"Never shall that line fail, though the years may lengthen beyond count."

He ghosted through the darkening evening, trying to fight off despair. They needed him; they cried out as he passed, and each touch sickened his soul a little more. _I can't bear this much longer. Much more, and I will lie down and die of weariness and grief._

Ahead of him in the shadows, a tiny fountain burbled endlessly to itself. He turned towards it. At least it would make no demands he could not meet, would burden his soul with no further sorrow. He crouched beside it, trailing his fingers through the water, and felt a small, frail ease. This garden was dark. No floodlights rasped against his skin or blotted out the sky. He would sit here a while.

He bent, cupping his hands in the water and washing his face. It was clear and cold, and smelt of watercress and mint. He liked the scent, but even here, the acric odor of exhaust overlay everything, twisting it into a perversion of itself. Eru, but he hated human cities. A breeze sprang up, tossing the branches of the slender birch planted beside the fountain. He flinched away. Too late. Leaves and twigs brushed across his face, and he heard …

Amazed, he stilled, looking up. The tree was weak from polluted water and air, but it wasn't dying. Cautiously, he stood and reached out to touch the trunk. _The one who lives here cares for us._ Almost, he wept. Here, he could help. Stepping forward, he rested his forehead against the smooth bark, and flattened his palms on the trunk, letting his mind open and sink down into the heartwood.

When he had done what he could, he sat down again, leaning against the birch tree this time. With some absent corner of his mind, he was aware of footsteps inside the house, of the click of a switch as lights were shut off. Though he knew he had not been seen, could not be seen, something in him relaxed at the thought of whoever was inside going to bed. Then he realized the door was opening and a woman was coming out instead.

Resentment welled up. Why did she have to disturb him? Didn't she know it was night? She should be inside with all the rest of her kind. Humans couldn't see in the dark, though he supposed that in this half-lit dimness, perhaps even they could see a little.

 _Peace. This is her home. Even ten thousands of years, and the rule of kingdoms whose majesty and power she can't imagine, does not give you the right to order her from her home._

Resigned, he settled back against the tree and prepared to wait until she went back inside. But she did not. She walked barefoot to the middle of the lawn and - the second astonishment of this night - looked directly at the tree where he sat. For a startled moment, he wondered if she had seen him, or somehow sensed his presence? But he would not be seen unless he willed it. Nor had he betrayed himself by motion or sound.

She tipped her head back and looked up at the sky, and after a moment, asked, "How goes the night?"

Moved by some mad whimsy (after all, who else might she be asking?), he answered, "It is well," and instantly regretted it.

The woman spun towards him, her eyes wide with alarm. They grew wider, filling with fear, when she saw no one there.

Celeborn sighed. _You see?_ he sent the thought winging towards his long-absent wife, _You should never have named me The Wise. This must be one of the more foolish things I have ever done._ At the thought of Galadriel, so far away for so very long, an ache that he had born so long he could barely remember life without it lanced into an arrow of pain. Some starveling part of his soul awoke and keened for his wife. He muffled it, smoothed it back into silence, and drew the semblance of his body around him.

"Forgive me. I did not intend to startle you. It was only that you asked me a question…" He felt even more foolish trying to explain the wild impulse that had led him to answer.

She backed away, one trembling step and then another, her eyes now fixed on him. But even as he prepared to vanish again, castigating himself for shattering her peace and sending her fleeing indoors in fear, she surprised him yet again.

"I wasn't asking you. I didn't know you were there."

 _Three times in one night. Truly, it is time._ He spared a moment to wonder if, of all the oceans he had crossed, it would matter from which shore he set out on that last journey. And even now, nigh to being so sick at heart as to find his way west through Mandos's Halls, he shrank from the thought of leaving. How could he abandon his people, and the song - sick and faltering though it was - of the land that cried out for aid. For love. For him. He didn't suppose that Valinor needed anything from him.

He remained seated so as not to frighten her further. "Who were you asking, then?"

She flushed, and looked aside. Barely loud enough to be heard, she answered, "The stars."

"Do they answer?"

"Of course not," she said defensively. "I'm not that far off my rocker."

Moved by an impulse he didn't understand, he opened the walls about his mind and reached out, urging a further response.

The embarrassment faded from her face and she looked surprised by her own words as she added, quietly, "I don't know. Maybe. Or I pretend they do…"

There was something there. Could it still be? After all these years? "Show me," he said, equally quietly, and soothed away the defensive resistance before withdrawing to where he could watch without interfering further.

"I come out," she said, her words blurring slow and dreamlike. "And look up…" Her head tipped back.

Celeborn looked up also. They were so few, so dim and far away. He wondered what she saw, who had never known the glory of the stars before the sun was born. He moved a little closer to her thoughts, and the faint, scattered stars took on a borrowed mantle of beauty.

"I ask them, how goes the night? And I wait."

He felt her open herself and reach skyward. And unpracticed, unskilled, awkward and ignorant as she was, he felt the response with her.

"In that moment, I am filled with joy."

It was unmistakeable. Diluted by uncountable numbers of generations, still, he couldn't miss it.

She blinked and shook her head, as a swimmer coming out of deep water, and smiled, small and shy. "I pretend it is their answer."

He smiled, joy welling up inside him as well. Perhaps he could wait on these shores a while longer.

"It is not a pretense." _Granddaughter._


End file.
